In the beginning

I am not a Writer.

My wife is a Writer. I have friends who are Writers. I have colleagues who are Writers. Note the capital "W".

I have great respect for Writers. These are people who can organize thoughts and ideas so coherently and concisely that when you read their expression of these thoughts and ideas, the concepts are reproduced faithfully in your own mind. Or perhaps they lead you along some new path of thinking, where you discover things about yourself and your world that you didn't know, couldn't possibly know, based on your own life and experience.

I am merely a writer (lowercase "w"). I can string words together, make sentences, even paragraphs. Sometimes the paragraphs are coherent. I don't consider myself someone who can paint his own thoughts on the canvas of someone else's mind, or open new vistas of experience for another. But today I make a first attempt.

I have lived most of my life in my own head. Which is to say, I don't get out much. This blog is an attempt to push some of my life outside of my head.

I work with computers. I have worked with computers for forty-plus years. I am a programmer, but call myself a "software engineer" because it sounds more professional. The job of a programmer is very much in one's head. Programming is an art of understanding how some system of information or some real world process works, at least to the extent that it can be modeled within the confines of the finite-state automaton that is a computer. Once that understanding is achieved, it is expressed in terms of instructions the computer can digest, then refined and tested until the computer gives back the results we would expect from the actual system or process.

It seems natural for a person whose nature is to live in one's own head to gravitate toward a career as a computer programmer. However I don't consider computer programming to be a "natural" profession. Nothing is created except intellectual property. There are no buildings, no foodstuffs, no great works of art. No one is healed. No one is comforted. Programmers endure great stress to meet artificial deadlines for delivering nothing more than an electronic representation of how a computer might solve a "real world" problem. No philanthropy is involved. Except for those students, hobbyists, or others of independent means who can dabble in programming "creativity", it is about earning a paycheck. And if one is too caught up in the profession, about proving one's intellectual worth.

I guess in a sense my work parallels what a Writer does, except that the materials I write only induce some piece of electronic equipment to behave in a certain way. I have never given a computer an epiphany from it reading any of my programs. I have never written any prose other than descriptions of the way I expect my programs to behave when loaded into the computer's memory.

This blog is not to be about programming, other than to relate to you who I am and some of the forces that have brought me to this point in my life. As I look over the last few paragraphs, I realize it doesn't seem to be about anything at all, other than thoughts and reflections.

I do have other experiences besides geeky interaction with computers. I have a lovely, talented, and supportive wife Linda of nearly 20 years, who has kept me grounded. I enjoy the natural setting in which we find ourselves in a small town in New Hampshire, nestled in the foothills of the Monadnocks. I admire the creations of Nature, particularly the wild birds who struggle to survive and flourish. I have developed a love of cooking, which I find to be a most therapeutic activity. I consider myself spiritual, though not formally religious. I am more liberal than I am conservative. I have come to realize the value and importance of friends.

I will try to muse from time to time on whatever topic strikes me, whether it be an observation about life, an experience, an encounter, or a random thought from the middle of the night.

I will write, to try to illuminate myself to myself and to you. But keep in mind that I am not a Writer.